Monday 9 February 2009

Rockin' Song of the Week - Number 32


Joe Hill Louis -Boogie In The Park - Modern 20-813 (1950)
One man band Joe Hill Louis was tailor made to work with Sam Phillips who seemed drawn to eccentric people like a moth to a flame. A drummer, harmonica player, guitarist and no mean singer either, Joe Hill had recorded in Sun during July 1950 and returned on 27th November for a legendary session that ranged from the relentless bop of Boogie In the Park to his finest slow blues, Cold Chills. Everything that was ggood about Memphis blues was encapsulated in those two tracks. Apparantly Memphis deejay Dewey Phillips was a massive fan of JHL and was eager to push his records and make a star of him, no doubt having soaked up his imprompto one-man street corner gigs around town. In an interview Sam Phillips did with Martin Hawkins in 2000 he said that Boogie In The Park was written about either Handy Park or the local black baseball arena, Russwood Park, home of the Memphis Red Socks. For sheer hypnotic, unadulterated blues boogie, it was the equal of anything the wonderful John Lee Hooker ever conjured up.
Recommended downloads: I Feel Like A Million, the overdubbed 1953 stomper Western Union Man and a superb cover of the Sonny Boy Williamson classic Eyesight To The Blind.

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